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Around 3-4 months ago, my wifes phone (Motorola Defy) suddenly slowed to a pathetic crawl.It would take forever to accomplish anything. She didn't know why, but I suspected some rogue app.I forget all the steps I took to isolate the condition, but I found that the camera would store every photo in its own directory. Plus it did the same for thumbnails.Long terrible situation > short ... her phone no longer works.Now, at this time, she only had her phone for about 4-5 months. TOPS!!!She used the camera regularly, nothing outrageous.I made a backup of her 8GB microSD card.It was filled to the max!WTF?

I ran Microsoft Security Essentials on this backup folder.When it finished, it reported no issues. But it DID scan 12,408 directories.FRIGGIN' CRAZY, RIGHT??!??!The attached screenshot is about half way through the scan.

What's REALLY odd, I was able to delete all the photos. But the empty folders are still there.

DelAge32 is a command line tool that deletes or moves files by age (number of days). [...]/recurse Recurse through the entire subdirectory structure (see /rd option to remove empty directories)/subonly Recurse, but exclude the initial directory /rd Remove empty directories by age (according to "created" stamp) [...]

*I didn't know ... I didn't read the directions fully till my first few attempts because I wasn't paying attention and ended up watching a movie and having lunch ... because I got distracted.But I tried a few more times and all come up with the same results.

Logged

As an aspiring web developer/designer, it is a constant struggle to cope with my ADHD + Hypomania/Bipolar Disorder.

The slow growth of my web dev projects is eclipsed by my patience, understanding and desire to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE as I slowly progress.

Your best bet might be to just copy over anything you still want and then reformat the SD card.

Luck!

I have already DONE that.The card has since remained IN the phone. I'm not worried at ALL about the condition of the card nor the phone.

I'm asking for help to remove these items from their BACKUP LOCATION on my PC. por favor

Everything I've been recommended to do above has been done, with no effect to anything.----- ----- ----- ----- -----

[copy or print]D:\MomPhoneBackup\dcim\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\Camera\

That's where I was a few hours ago.Everything attempted via command line results with a message about the filename being too long.So I've manually gone and done this:

[copy or print]D:\MomPhoneBackup\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\0\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\0\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\0\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\0\1\2\3\4\5\6\7\8\9\0\1\2\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\Camera\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\33\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\3\1>

Now all the above directories are EMPTY.I am renaming all "/Camera/" folders to single-digits. Each Camera folder has ninety-something JPG files in them.

Using the above mentioned command: "rmdir /S /Q dirnamehere" does nothing.Then I started renaming the "/Camera/" folders and deleting the photos: del *.jpg

if you can delete 1, try 5, then 10, etc and see if you can get it down to something reasonable

I'e tried that at the root of the folder, middle, and at the end.At the end, where the last Camera folder is at, and also where the photo files are, I'm not able to delete them.

When I try to delete them via command line, it says: The system cannot find the path specified.When I try to delete them via Explorer window, it says: The name(s) were too long for the destination folder. You can shorten the file name and try again.

That's why I renamed all the original '/Camera/' folders to single numerals.It actually DID help, as I was able to navigate further than before.

I'm stuck now, because all I've tried no longer works.

Logged

As an aspiring web developer/designer, it is a constant struggle to cope with my ADHD + Hypomania/Bipolar Disorder.

The slow growth of my web dev projects is eclipsed by my patience, understanding and desire to learn AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE as I slowly progress.

I'm not a Linux user (too lazy) but isn't this the sort of thing they're meant for?

Yes they are. Any 'live' Linux distro will work. It doesn't have to be a rescue release. The file manager in Puppy or one of the mini distros should work equally well. I've done that when a Macintosh directory was copied onto an external HD, and Windows Explorer and the command line couldn't delete certain files because the path/name was too long; or contained a character not allowed (e.g. / \ * etc.) under Windows. PartedMagic is a good Swiss Army type utility disk to have for this sort of thing.

NOPE.I extracted the contents of "delage32.zip" to a temp directory. And ran my first command:Delage32 D:\MomPhoneBackup\*.* 10 /recurse /rd[...]DelAge32 - No files[...]But I tried a few more times and all come up with the same results.

It's meant for deleting files over a given age. You may need to wrap the path in double quotes, if the path has spaces in it. I.e.,

D:\Here it is\*.*

would probably fail, but

"D:\Here it is\*.*"

should work (I think). I certainly had to use quotes round UNC paths. You may also have run into a command line that's just too long for Windows/DOS to accept: there's a limit, though I can't remember just what it is.

both worked, and that last one does have spaces in the path. I used these examples in batch files for automated clean-ups, using PowerPro's scheduler.

Another thought; shouldn't most file managers do what you want without fuss? Total Commander certainly will. You have to press OK the first time if it thinks there's something inside the top-level directory you're deleting, including empty child directories, but only the once. It isn't free as delage32 is, but it's modestly priced, and one of the best-value file managers out there, as well as one of the very best file managers anywhere. It was the first thing that made using Windows almost semi-tolerable for this old-time DOS person.